Mumbai film fest to pick 32 students as critics

New Delhi, Sep 6, The 12th Mumbai Film Festival (MFF) Oct 21-28 will have 32 college students on board as special jury for its Mumbai Young Critics section.

Introduced last year, Mumbai Young Critics was an initiative to demarcate a place for young, budding viewers and aspiring filmmakers.

Organised by the Mumbai Academy of Moving Image (MAMI), MFF is a Reliance Big Entertainment Ltd. (RBEL) initiative which is the flagship media and entertainment arm of the Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group.

“The objective of Mumbai Young Critics is to provide young impressionable minds with the opportunity to experience the aesthetic standards of the best in cinema, and to experience world-class film criticism and appreciation first-hand,” read a statement.

“Amongst aspiring film reviewers, only 32 college students will be selected for Mumbai Young Critics to form an independent student jury,” it further read.

The selections for the same will be made based on nominations from authorities at the city’s top colleges by Sep 15.

Each academic institution will nominate up to two students who have demonstrably taken a keen interest in cinema as an artistic medium and who have an understanding of the history and development of the film medium.

All nominees will then go through a selection process that will consist of on-the-spot film reviewing, group discussion and interviews. They will then further go through a workshop with established film critics and filmmakers in order to understand their responsibilities.

The final 32 will not only have the opportunity to watch all films screened during the festival, interact with celebrity guests, but will also participate in the press conferences, seminars and master classes. Their reviews will be published in the festival daily bulletin and other festival publications.

The team will honour a film at the gala with a Mumbai Young Critics Award which will carry a Silver Gateway trophy and a certificate.